


Degrees of Separation

by The_Reeds_of_Enki



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:29:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29751354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Reeds_of_Enki/pseuds/The_Reeds_of_Enki
Summary: Strength in numbers is the only kind of strength Kono knows. But strength offers no absolution in the coming storm.





	Degrees of Separation

They were a juggernaut, a titanic litany of small, silver bodies slicing through the wet dark. If what little light that breached the deep end of Melemele’s shore cast shadows on the multiform congregation of Alola’s water-loving creatures, in their wake, they cast an abyss. 

Kono was just the tip of their powerful dorsal fin, but when it was time to move, in that instinctive concert of wishiwashi movement, he felt the push and pull of their great body like a wave. 

_Push_ , pull. Push, _pull_. It was this savage rhythm that rocked the world even in its primordial state. When they came together, they were more than the sum of their parts. They were the moon, parting a tide of would-be predators simply by asserting their presence in the waters.

It had been a long time since the ocean was a big place for Kono. The memory of being out in the open blue, exposed, _alone_ fused him to his place at the upper fin, until the leader of his school, a veteran fish named Hali’a, bid otherwise. Two weeks had passed since he was a part of the inner body, and he was enjoying the sights only an outer part could supply. Another two weeks from now, he might be a scale on the pectoral fin, or a shiny teardrop in the corner of a massive white-and-blue retina. But always, he would be part of the school. 

_Push_ , pull. _Push_ , pull. _Push_... 

They rose through the benthic twilight, past the deeper reaches of the Melemele Reef, until the shoreline was in sight. Sunlight speared the surface of the water in uneven thrusts; their liquid ceiling rippled under the weight of some foreign entity. They weren’t bothered by it. It was probably a pelipper, or perhaps a dartrix that strayed from the safety of land in favor of a snack. Maybe a seagull making its senseless rounds about the beach. Whatever the case, their legion behemoth could not be mistaken for a common anchovy. 

A tawny hill crumbled down into the surface of the ocean, down past a forest of wavy brown-green seaweed. A pebble of glittery sand rolled down the hill’s length, broke apart, and sparkled like an underwater disco. The sparkle-shine of sifting sand, so much like the glitter of eggs, was like an invitation to feast. Kono shivered. They all shivered. Perhaps anchovies had been on their minds as well. 

“It’s time to turn the sand bar into our salad bar!” Hali’a called out, who had been trained before and never missed a chance to regale them with references to human culture. But the declaration was a welcome one, and Kono wondered how many tasty eggs were hidden in the watery jungle. Enough for them all, he hoped. 

A hundred unspoken words played forth between the wishiwashi around him in quick, impatient bobs of a fin or the rustling of scales. They were hungry. When the orders from the leader (always at the nose) rippled throughout the body, Kodo was eager to pass them on.

These orders were complex, not at all the automatic sway of their routine formation, and took an entire three seconds to relay. Kono was told to order the wishiwashi behind and around him to separate; they would form a dome about this new feeding ground, so as not to let anything tasty escape. Then, a twitch of scales, an infinitesimal weave of the body — _“Anything larger than we are is to be let through.”_

Smart. Hali’a knew not to pick fights when they could avoid it. They could dissuade butterflyfish, tangs, even the occasional reef shark, but if there was another pokemon in there, that meant a proper fight. They would be weakened by the unfamiliarity and looseness of this new form and unfit for combat. 

The school took their places in the dome. Kono’s place, he was disappointed to find, was in a dense cluster in the top-middle of the sphere. He waggled his tail, “ _What’s going on?”_ but received no answer. Which was fair, he supposed. Those about him wouldn’t know, and those beyond would be more concerned with getting the orders right. 

Speaking of, Kono’s disappointment soon abated at the command to tighten and cycle through the brush. In and out, tighter and tighter. Kono weaved through hundreds of his fellows as they closed in on the kelp forest. A small explosion of recalcitrant fish burst from the verdant dunes to answer their show of cooperative might. Some even bit at them. Those were dealt with swiftly; twelve Water Guns to an overeager parrotfish broke its jaw and punctured its body, “like a macabre piñata,” crowed Hali’a, eternally incapable of hiding her infatuation with human customs. 

When the dome was small and dense enough to comb the kelp forest for food, the order was given to pepper the sand with short, percussive bolts of water. That sent the stragglers screaming from their sandy dens, leaving a treasure trove of unguarded eggs. _Yum._

After Hali’a and her chosen schoolmates had doven into the dens and deemed them safe (and having first pick of the meal) it was a simple matter of rotating from watching for predators to enjoying the _squish_ and _squelp_ of jellied eggs. Or, “caviar,” as their leader told them. Kono would have rolled his eyes if it weren’t so un-wishiwashi, and the risk of communicating something unintentional wasn’t worth a gibe only their pretentious leader was likely to get. 

Bellies blissfully full, they fell into their assigned positions. This time, Kono was padding on the right side of their caudal fin. It wasn’t quite as luxurious as being the tip of the dorsal, but far enough on the outer part of the school that he could still enjoy the occasional flash of pink coral when the school made a sharp turn. 

It wasn’t long before they received their next order. The order, relayed by way of flashing fins, was to stay put. That by itself wasn’t terribly unusual, especially after having eaten a meal, but Kono noticed that, along with Hali’a’s instruction, there was the anxious muttering of scales: “ _Something’s wrong.”_

_What,_ though? It was times like these that made Kono wish he were back at his beloved spot at the edge again. Had their assault on the sand bed offended a pokemon living there? Kono fished for answers, but with all the other wishiwashi doing the same, it was just a mess of the same thing being repeated. Nobody knew what was going on except those on the outside, and they weren’t sharing.

“ _SWIM DOWN!”_ came the following command, punctuated by an emphatic swish of the tail. “ _LOSE THEM IN THE DARK!”_

Kono did what he was told, like he always did, but _why_ though, he wanted to kn— hang on, _there were still wishiwashi back there._ In the corner of his vision, he made out a group of five lingering, motionless, in the space they left behind. 

Then he saw it. That gaping grin, the slender blue body, the electricity crackling down a rubbery length that could only belong to an eelektross. But why, _how_ , Kodo thought frantically. They weren’t native to Alola. There was no way it was _that_ lost, or — unless — yes, he saw it now, the bipedal shape with flippers and a green snorkel.

A _trainer_. Lulled by their recent feast, they must have missed the trainer enter the waterway. Perhaps it had come alone at first, appearing to not be a threat, before it set the terrible electric-type upon them. “Don’t look back,” Kono was told, but he couldn’t help it. The eelektross approached the still body of one of their kin, those four terrible teeth and its suction mouth closing shut... 

He was going to be sick. This shouldn’t be happening. “We have to fight back! _”_ Kono roared aloud. “We are wishiwashi. We can take them! _”_

There was no response from the leader. That was the last straw for Kono. _He_ did not fear trainers, or their pokemon. For one to set upon their waters, unprovoked, send their pokemon to attack and _eat_ one of them, _a fellow pokemon,_ like some common animal... and then for them to be told to just _SWIM AWAY_? No. That was unacceptable. Kono broke ranks for the first time in his life and swam, faster still than the fleeing forms of his kin in formation, until he was in the unmistakable position of a challenge, at the nose of their shared leviathan. 

“Fool! _We don’t have time for this,”_ their leader said. She flapped an indignant fin back toward where he was assigned. But Kono was adamant.

“We are wishiwashi,” he said. “We stay and fight!” he said. “Together, preferably. But if you won’t, _I_ will.”

“So this is a challenge, then.”

A thousand pairs of nervous eyes flitted between the two of them and the distant body of the eelektross. The danger was still very much present, but a challenge was not something that could be ignored.

Kono would come out of it as the leader of the school or as an exile of it. 

Their leader made the first move. A current wrapped itself around her as she willed the water into a hard extension of her tail, which she used to propel herself beyond the percussive bubble Kono blasted out of his mouth. Then again, when he fired another bolt of water at her. It was no use. He’d have to use something other than Water Gun. It was just too predictable. 

The problem was... he didn’t actually _know_ any other moves. Kono was beginning to have second thoughts about his spur-of-the-moment challenge. 

All the while, his leader (and the rest of the school that followed her) sank deeper into the water, where the only source of light came from each frightening flash of electricity as the eelektross probed the wide reef. 

_Szzpt_! Fingers of coral blue stretched out like many grasping hands.

_Chhkpt_! Reflections shone from a thousand wide eyes, scattering.

_Szzchkt!_ A thousand silver lights drifted down way past the coral, a serpentine lightning bolt in pursuit.

Then nothing.

...

Kono wondered, dumbly, when their leader was coming back to finish the challenge. Then he realized there was no ‘they’ anymore. He was alone. 

The panic that seized him from all sides was as absolute as the dark. He could see nothing, hear nothing, of his school. He dashed toward where he thought he last saw them — there, light — _he would not lose them_ — wait — no, no, no, no, _no_...

He was back in the shallows. The clearness of the waters bore precision to the sinking certainty that he was totally, hopelessly lost. 

The shallows’ reef was ablaze with life, totally apathetic to his situation. In any other situation, he would have appreciated Melemele’s rainbow garden. As it was, each passing shadow was a shot of ice through his veins. He had never felt smaller. He paced back and forth, the dizzy spin of his head at each abrupt turn the only reprieve from the pandemonium of his thoughts. 

_What do I do now? Are they coming back? Did I lose? Am I an exile now? Can I_ ever _go back?_

It was all too much. The shadow of what looked like a baby seal (no, a popplio?) bearing down on him was all he needed to complete Kono’s total nervous breakdown. He passed out. 

0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0

“Hey! Hey! Hey! Are you awake yet? How ‘bout now? Well? Well???”

Kono stared death in its baby-blue face, awaiting his mortal soul to be carried off into the big ocean in the sky. In all his wildest dreams, however, he would never have imagined death to have a shockingly high-pitched voice, nor an equally shockingly bright-pink nose. Oh, wait. 

“Wherrmi?” Kono slurred. 

“You’re safe! Really safe! I saved you! Wow, you’re small! You’re part of the team now! If you want! My name’s Eleu!” 

That was a lot for Kono to absorb in his exhausted state. Having decided passing out would be more economical than answering each one of the popplio’s gratingly cheery statements, he did just that. 

It was a while before Kono realized that he was awake again. It was warm. There was a muted light to the room, like the dull red of magma vents on the ocean floor. He wondered if he really _had_ died, if the popplio had been how his brain characterized the trauma, and he was in the process of being reincarnated in the womb. Then he realized: this must be what being inside of a pokeball felt like. Maybe it was the shock talking, but strangely, that didn’t bother him. It was better than being something’s appetizer, at least, and if the popplio -- _Eleu_ \-- hadn’t been a fever dream, then it sounded as if he had a choice in the matter. Long-term, at least. For now, he was still figuring out the logistics of breaking out of a monster ball’s insides. 

Gauging its size was difficult, made in part by the fact that Kono himself was very, very small. He knew that larger pokemon, like that awful eelektross, could fit in them, but he wasn’t sure if they conformed to a pokemon’s size, or if they were just naturally spacious. After trying (and failing) to find the edge of the pokeball, Kono was struck by another quandary: was there water here? He didn’t _feel_ wet, but it wasn’t like he would know either way. He’d never given much thought to it when he was actually underwater. 

Solitude proved to be fertile ground for existential crisis. Kono had never needed to put much thought into problem-solving before, and certainly not much thought about what being _wet_ or not felt like. Wait -- if this place _wasn’t_ wet, then what was he breathing? _Was_ he breathing? _He couldn’t breathe!_

The walls of the strange room began to flicker bright, urgent red, which really didn’t help Kono feel any better about being stuck inside it. Then, after the third flicker, it split like a wailord’s toothless maw, and spat Kono out. In the flurry of shapes and colors that followed free-fall, he could make out a brown, lined floor (wood, he guessed), a machine operated by a woman with enormous pink hair, then, more closely, a large, curved glass filled with what he hoped was water. 

Kono slid into the glass, relishing the comfort and certainty of familiar ground. Well, water. He was fairly sure it was water. It sure did taste weird, though. (Had he ever given much thought to how water _tasted_ before?) 

“Woah!” he heard someone say — a feminine, human voice. “You okay there, little guy?” The human, who must have owned the pokeball he was trapped in, had short brown hair and teeth bridged with metal train tracks.

... humans had the _weirdest_ fashion trends. 

Kono looked up at the human girl suspiciously, as she was ripping open squares of paper and pouring white crystals out of them and into his container. “Tell me when to stop, ‘kay?” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you to trigger a release all of a sudden, so this’ll have to do. I hope that pitcher’s not too uncomfortable. Oh, and my name’s Lana.”

After giving the offered sprinkles an investigative lick, Kono determined that it was salt. The human girl — Lana — was trying to turn the glass into salt water, he realized. “This is fine!” he gurgled when it reached a comfortable salinity, and was surprised to hear his comment repeated like a static echo.

“Thanks, Olli,” Lana told a floating, screened red thing beside her. 

“Alola,” the screen told Kono. “I offer translation and cross-cultural courses to Eleu, Lana, and Colleen. I can offer assistance to you, also, if needed.”

“Uhhhh...” Kono said, which was then very helpfully translated. “What _are_ you? And er, alola to you too.” Given that his (ex?) leader had been an avid consumer of human media, the school had made regular visits to beaches all over Alola in search of dive-in movies to crash. He seemed to recall something about a red screen from one such escapade, but the memory was a fuzzy one. 

“I’m a rotom!” the screen (Olli?) said. “I’ve decided to help Lanakila (“ _Just_ Lana, thanks!”) with her island challenge. You can call me 011-1 if you don’t share Lana’s aversion to proper designations.”

“How about Olli?”

“Close enough, I suppose.”

So this rotom would be Kono’s translator, huh? He supposed it could come in handy. Water proved to be a pretty obstructive language barrier, even if Kono was (to him, at least) speaking clear Alolan. “Thanks, Olli.” 

“So hey,” Lana said, “what was a wishiwashi doing all washed up in the Melemele surf? Eleu said you were in some serious trouble, little cuz.”

“I, uh, sort of got separated from my school,” Kono said. “I’d like to go back as soon as possible,” he added. 

“Do you know where they are?” Lana asked. “We can go drop you off once you’ve had your check-up.”

“ _Check-up?_ ”

“Doctor’s orders,” Lana said. “Miss J. would have my head if I let a patient go before she approved their release. That’s her over there, by the way.” She pointed toward the pink-haired woman Kono saw on his way out of the pokeball. A bronze nameplate atop the counter in front of her read Nurse Joy, Pocket Monster MD.

“But I’m _not_ a patient. I just got here.” 

“Dude, you’ve been out for like, two days now. Totally conked. Miss J’s been pushing your ball through the machine to check for brain damage. She said it’s probably just shock or something to that effect, but she wanted to be sure. Oh, and uh, sorry about that, by that way. Sounds rough, losing your family.”

“I have to find them,” Kono said dazedly. Two whole days. Who _knows_ where they had gone by now? 

“Yeah, no prob,” Lana said. “Figured we could help, you know, if you want. Ohana and all that, li’l cuz.” She made two V’s with her hands and did a jig, which Kono figured was supposed to mean something. 

“Uh, yeah,” Kono said. “I’d like that.” It was strange, being helped by someone not of his species. With his school, charities were given and forgotten in the name of group wellness. When aid was obligatory, it was easy to take it for granted. Kono wanted to be suspicious of Lana’s goodwill, but she was just so disarmingly genuine (there she was, breakdancing in front of the nurse) that it was hard to think she was hiding ulterior motives. 

“Right,” Lana said when she got back, “so a nurse has to see you in person before you can get the OK to go. You can also wait for a chansey to become available if you’re more comfortable talking with another pokemon.”

“Whatever gets me out the fastest.”

“That’d be Miss J. Sign here.” Lana presented Kono with a piece of paper and a tiny bowl of ink, which she held up to the pitcher’s spout. “Just a slap of the fin there -- nice -- there, too... and there... aaaaand you’re good to go!”

Lana gripped Kono’s pitcher (“Here we go!”) and pushed past a door beside the big machine that dominated the middle floor. It was yet another adventure Kono was forced to endure; the pitcher sloshed with every step, the water distorted everything, making everyone appear even bigger than they already were, and looking down didn’t help. Nope. Definitely didn’t help. Kono shut his eyes and prayed that each uneven swing of his slipshod tank wasn’t the one that would send him careening to the floor. 

When his container made a heart-stopping _THUNK_ and Lana said a hurried goodbye, Kono‘s eyes flew open. Waveworks at the top of the pitcher aside, he was stationary. He had been placed in a cozy little office with a long bed covered in a see-through film, three flower-print chairs, and a pale blue desk with a monitor on it. Sitting in the deskside chair was an exact duplicate of the pink-haired woman Kono was sure had just been busy operating the machine in the other room. 

“Hi,” said the woman who looked exactly like Nurse Joy, “I’m Nurse Joy. Lana says you came from the ocean. No doubt you have a lot of questions.”

“For starters, how are there two of you?” Kono said, which was then sleepily translated through a rotom hanging on the wall. 

The woman laughed as if he’d just said something funny. then said, “Oh, there are a lot more than two of us! But I doubt you want to hear about that. We’ve got some forms to sign!” 

“Does that mean _I’ve_ got some forms to sign?” 

“Mostly you, yes. I’ll send in my associate, who will handle a few orders of business before I can approve your release.” 

Her associate, as it turned out, was a malamar in a white lab coat and a little black bowler hat, holding a clipboard in one of her tentacles. Overall, she gave the impression of a low-budget superhero movie villain. Kono would know, given his leader’s adoration for the _Captain Kahuna_ series. 

“Hello, mister Kono,” the malamar said, “my name’s Murphy. I’ll be the one handling your citizenry registration. I hope this evening finds you well.”

“It’s been a bit —”

“Splendid. Have you been forcibly captured, are you being coerced to perform contrary to your better interest, or otherwise being held against your will?”

“Uh, what?”

“Standard procedure. Yes or no.”

“No.”

“Fabulous. Have you taken recreational drugs sometime in the past year?”

Kono stared at her. “I live in the middle of the ocean. Where am I going to find drugs?”

“Yes or no.”

“Jeez, no.”

“Great. Now, I’m obligated by trans-regional law to inform you that your finprint, name, and any other pertinent information discovered henceforth will be recorded and matched to a social security number, which will be generated and delivered within seven to twelve business days. How would you like this information to be mailed to you?”

“Again, middle of the ocean.”

“Patient — chooses — to — withhold — forwarding — of — information. Welcome to the mainland, mister Kono. Should you find yourself in question of your rights and responsibilities as an Alolan citizen, the rotom in the main lobby will be happy to assist you. You’re free to go now.” 

Murphy pushed a pamphlet labeled Taxes for Dummies next to Kono’s pitcher, tipped her hat, and waddled out the door. Kono was left waiting for someone to bring his pitcher back to the lobby. Just as he was beginning to suspect they’d forgotten about him, there was a knock, and Lana came in. “How’d everything go?” she asked.

“Well, there’s nothing physically wrong with me, but I have to pay taxes now, so there’s that.”

“Oh, that’s just for potions and pokeballs, that sort of thing. And League fees. If you take place in a commercialized event, like a tournament, some of the proceeds go to the state. It’s what keeps the centers running.”

“Have you been in a tournament before?”

“One or two,” Lana said. “I’m gonna grab a roserade tea before we hit the road, you want a sip?”

“No thanks,” Kono said. He’d had enough new experiences for one day. 

“Suit yourself. So uh, let’s talk transportation first. I can’t carry you all across Alola.”

“The pokeball is fine,” Kono said. 

In truth, he preferred it, having experienced life inside a pitcher. Everything was just so big and up close above sea level. Before, distance evened the playing field. Even a wailord appeared as small as Kono was with enough space between them. There was no pretending up here. Kono could feel every booming voice, every crashing footstep on a seismic scale. _Everyone_ was a giant to a wishiwashi. And that didn’t change, exactly; it was just that on land, he couldn’t pretend otherwise. So it was almost a relief when the world dissolved into scarlet light. 

Inside the pokeball, Kono was at first only dimly aware of the going-ons of the outside world. Boredom was a powerful motivator for experimentation, however. He found that, if he wanted to, he could hear what was going on outside, but soon tired of Lana’s off-tune rendition of Combee Gees’ _Stayin’ Alive_. Eleu’s decision to make it a duet did nothing to improve it. 

“Ah, ah, ah, ah, staying alive, stayin’ _aliiiiiiiiiiive_ ~”

Forced to choose between creepy silence and terrible singing, Kono decided that the latter was marginally better. At the very least it distracted him from the panic that swelled in his body like a balloon. What would he do if they couldn’t find his school? Even more alarmingly, what would he do if they did? The last he’d seen of them, he had challenged their leader to a hopelessly one-sided battle for her leadership. What had he been _thinking_? He’d never been in a one-on-one fight in his life! 

_“_ _Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me_

_Somebody help me, yeah_

_Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me, yeah_

_I'm stayin' alive~”_

...then again, he was traveling with a trainer. Maybe he wasn’t as irrevocably screwed as he thought. If he had any hope of ‘stayin’ alive,’ it was with Lana. At least until he could hold his own on his own. When he found his school, he would be ready to finish the challenge he had foolishly started. 

“We’re almost there now,” Lana said offhandedly. Kono suspected it was for his benefit. 

“School, ho!” Eleu added. 

When they let him out, though, the ocean was nowhere in sight. It was in a swimming pool, completely indoors, with tall wooden beams hanging overhead. In the distant half of the room, a muscular, shirtless man with an unbuttoned lab coat pantomimed at a series of chalkboards depicting pokemon moves. 

“I thought you were taking me to the beach?”.

“Sorry, Kono,” Lana said. We overheard you monologuing through the pokeball’s thought-to-speech option. We tried singing over it, but we weren’t all that successful.”

“But I thought you said we were heading to my school,” Kono said, confused at the turn of events. 

“Not _your_ school,” Eleu said. “ _Trainer_ school.”

The irony of the name was not lost on Kono. “So you’ve brought me here so I can become strong enough to return to my school?” 

“That’s the gist of it!” Lana bent down so her face was level with the side of the pool. “If you just wanna go back, let us know. But if you want to get stronger, this is the place.”

It was a little mortifying, knowing that Kono’s companions had been privy to his intimate and often unflattering thoughts, but relief and gratitude blossomed past the shame. “Thanks, you two,” he said. “I appreciate it. I don’t know where to start, though.”

“That’s why you have me!” Lana said. “C’mon, I’ll go introduce you to Professor K.”

“She means Kukui,” Olli said from somewhere inside Lana’s purse. 

“Pssh, details. Let’s go already!” 

Kukui beat them to it. He strode from the other side of the tin building and cried out, “Alola, cousins!” 

“‘Lola, cuz,” Lana said. “This is Kono.”

“Hey there, Kono! Eleu, good to see you too, man.” He exchanged a fist bump with one of Eleu’s flippers. To Lana, he said, “How’s it hanging?”

“Aight, yourself? I was hoping we could use this place to train.”

“Fine by me! Let me see you move, little dude.”

Kono assumed Kukui was speaking to him. The guy was huge, even by human standards — which, thus far had been pretty much Lana. The guy had biceps bigger than Lana’s _face_. If Kono was a little dude, this guy was definitely a big one. “Uh-lola,” he stammered. “What do you want me to do?”

“Show me your moves, man! Lay it on me. I wanna see you _dance_.”

“Just use your most powerful attack on him,” Olli said, dislodging himself from Lana’s purse in evident expectation of the need to further translate from Kukui to Alolan.

“Oh,” Kono said. Feeling very self-conscious, he puffed up his cheeks and gathered as much pressure he could. The resulting Water Gun was a thin stream that tapered off a foot before reaching Kukui. The resulting aftermath was a slightly damp coat and a beaming professor, totally unharmed. 

“Not the best First Impression,” Kukui said, “but most wishiwashi depend on the strength of their school for their power plays, am I right? Looks like you need a little experience honing your own strength. What else do you have?”

“I can Growl,” Kono said. “I can also lend a Helping Hand to enhance another pokemon’s attack. It’s not exactly useful for one-on-one battles, but it’s helped the school make some powerful attacks together.”

“I bet!” Kukui said, sounding genuinely excited. “Your school must have what, two hundred, three hundred in it?”

“Closer to a thousand, actually. We’re one of the bigger schools.”

“You wishiwashi have an incredible Hidden Power,” Kukui said. “Individually, you may not appear to be that strong, but I can’t even imagine how powerful your attacks must be with all of you Assisting each other. Can your leader use Hydro Pump?”

“Yeah,” Kono said, heart sinking at the thought. “She has a reputation for being able to. It’s why our school’s so big.” Why, why, _why_ had he challenged her?

“I bet you Bulldoze all your opponents,” Kukui said. “Talk about some serious Water Sports!”

“If only,” Kono said darkly. “We -- my leader, that is -- chose to run away from this eelektross. It came out of nowhere... It even _ate_ one of us. We could have taken it,” he said. 

“So that’s why you’re here,” Kukui said. “Revenge, is that it?” He looked gravely serious all of a sudden. 

“Not really,” Kono said, “but I wouldn’t mind getting it back for what it did to us. I challenged my leader over leadership of the school. If I go back, she’ll destroy me. I’d have to find a new home anyway if that happened.”

“Does that mean your leader would have to leave instead?”

“Yes -- no -- I don’t know! I’ve never seen a challenge play out before. I just wish it had never happened in the first place,” Kono said. “I don’t want her to have to leave either.”

“Then it’s settled!” Kukui said. “You become strong enough for the both of you to stay. Win, and don’t make her go. Simple.”

“She’s been trained before, though,” Kono said. “She’s so much stronger than I am.”

“What do you think you’re here for? Just go at your training with the energy of a Magnitude Ten, and you’ll be strong enough to handle anything, you hear me? Repeat after me: MAGNITUDE TEN!”

Only Lana joined Kukui’s war cry, but she didn’t seem to notice (or care). “MAGNITUDE TEN!” she roared. 

That was going to become a thing, wasn’t it? 

Kono sighed. This is what he signed up for. After all, if all those movies his leader had forced them all to see taught him anything, it was that you needed an epic training montage before you got what you wanted. This really wasn’t much different from the plot of _Hitmonchamp III_ \-- just hopefully with a happier ending. 

The arrival of a new trainer and their own entourage diverted Kukui’s attention from them. Lana, undeterred, said she could handle it from there anyway. “I mostly just wanted him to help get us fired up,” she explained. “Kono, we gotta develop those cheek and gut muscles. That means breathing exercises! Pack in all the air you can get and hold it there for ten seconds. We’ll make a rep of ten of those, then another five Water Guns. “Magnitude ten! C’mon, Kono, say it with me: MAGNITUDE TEN!” 

In the end, Lana never did get Kono to join her rousing chorus, but after a long day of exhausting muscles he didn’t even know he had, she was satisfied nevertheless. She had Eleu do some water acrobatics with rings she tossed into the air, but Kono wasn’t given enough of a reprieve from his own exercises to admire the other water-type for long. From what he saw, though, he was impressed. It was a wonder Eleu hadn’t evolved yet, with the explosive speed he shot out of the water, and the elegance with which he twirled through the air to slip through another airborne ring. 

They would do this until the sun went down, then sleep off the strain in their pokeballs. Kono would wake in the trainer school, and the day would repeat. It was a solid week before Kono saw any noticeable results, but by what he felt must have been the millionth Water Gun barrage, he was putting serious dents into the wooden blocks Lana set up as target practice. In a moment of adrenaline-fueled inspiration, he feinted to the side of a block dropped into the water by accident, then slammed into it with the weight of his body. Kukui told him it had been a Feint Attack, and that it came instinctively to wishiwashi of a certain level. 

So naturally, Lana incorporated that into the schedule, too. By the end of the second week, he was doing over a hundred daily Water Guns and fifty Feint Attacks. It was miserable work, but Kono could feel himself getting stronger by the day. It was the first he had ever considered himself ‘strong’ by any means. Lana and Kukui were always going on about how important strength was, and Kono had a feeling they meant it in more than physical power. He could feel himself changing along with his body, more acclimated to the idea of being a person, rather than part of a collective. 

It was on the night that Kono mastered Diving through the water and using the forward momentum to land a stronger attack that Lana let them finish early. She and Kukui treated them to casteliacones at the pokecenter, while the news relayed the latest tragedies. Kono’s attention had mostly been wrapped up in figuring out how to enjoy the cone part of his ice cream, but he could tell that the channel had been changed.

“...don’t want to alarm him,” Lana said in a whisper. “The news might upset him.”

“It would mess with his training,” Kukui agreed. “We can’t let him lose sight of what’s important.”

The morning after was so mundane that Kono soon forgot the strange conversation, too engrossed in lapping the pool in a time Lana found satisfactory. 

Three and a half weeks in, Kono knew more moves than he ever thought would be possible. He had wanted to stop using Water Gun altogether in favor of the stronger, but slower Brine, but Kukui told him that every move had its use, even the weakest of water-types. “For the times when you can only get in a quick jab, use Water Gun,” he said. “Not every situation’s gonna give you the time for a full-blown Brine.” 

When a month had passed, Kukui took it on himself to test the power of Kono’s Take Down move. In stark contrast to the ineffectiveness of his first move used on the man, when he torpedoed out from the water, it stumbled the powerfully built man, who had to take a half-step back to regain his balance. Which was a lot for a wishiwashi, Kono felt. He took pride in that half-step. 

“Magnitude ten,” Lana said, satisfaction evident in her voice. 

“I have nothing more that I can teach you,” Kukui said. “I’m referring you to an associate of mine. Doctor Ditto is a move tutor who specializes in helping pokemon fine-tune the power of their moves. Given the nature of your quest, Kono, I think you’ll find his unique abilities especially relevant.”

“Deedee’s the best,” Lana said. “He’s all about helping people overcome their natural limitations.”

“I’ll be giving him a lot to work with then, I guess,” Kono said. “I’m still nowhere near as strong as my leader is.”

“I thought we beat that silly pessimism out of you,” Lana said, raising a fist for show. “You’re doing great, Ko.”

“Is that what you’re gonna call me from now on?”

“Fo’ sho’, Ko,” Lana said, grinning. “Now let’s gooooo! Time’s a wasting.”

0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0

Kono had mastered the enigmatic machinations of his pokeball by now, and could even pull up a circular screen based on what the pokeball’s button (which doubled as a camera, apparently) could see. This was often a dubious boon, though, given that the buckled screen shook with the bounce of Lana’s gait, or was placed inside her pocket, giving Kono a resplendent view of pitch-black denim. 

More helpful was the pokeball’s ability to sync with another ball in its owner’s collection. Kono and Eleu enjoyed calling each other to talk about their favorite foods, what hobbies they had in common, and occasionally gripe about their training safely out of Lana’s earshot. Eleu helped Kono troubleshoot a way to ensure that he didn’t accidentally turn on thought-to-speech again, which, in the other pokemon’s words, “would suck for both of them.” 

“So how close do you think you are to evolving?” Kono said.

“Er, well...” Eleu hedged, and Kono could tell immediately that he had said something wrong if the hyper-talkative popplio was lost for words. Maybe evolution was a personal subject for the pokemon capable of it. 

“Sorry if I was too forward,” Kono said. “We can talk about something else -- that Bubblebeam you made yesterday was something else. I’d never considered using mucus to hinder an opponent’s movement like that.”

“That was Lana’s idea,” Eleu said. “It’s a trick we’ve been working on. But uh, yeah, evolving. I’m not sure I’m ready to.”

“Really?” Kono said. “But you move so quickly! I was sure you’d be able to by now.”

“It’s not about that,” Eleu said. Kono could see his flippers moving shiftily on the corner of the screen. “ I’m scared of how it might change me. Before, she was training another pokemon, Colleen. After she evolved, she was just so different. Not at all like the gentle magikarp I used to know. I just thought: what if that happens to me? I like who I am. I don’t want to change.”

“Oh,” Kono said. He’d never given much thought to what evolution was like, being incapable of it himself. “I’m sorry. Training must be hard for you if you have to hold it back all the time.”

“Not really,” Eleu said. “I was having troubles with buoyancy anyway, so Lana ordered me a special kind of gastrolith a while back. It’s made from an everstone, so, you know. I swim better and don’t have to worry about any unexpected evolutions! Two birds with one stone! I have a question for you now, Kono, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Shoot.”

“What would you like to be like if you could evolve?”

That was a hard one. Kono thought about having fangs and bigger body; he even toyed with the idea of having wings. Then he realized what he _really_ wanted. 

“I’d want to be dependable,” Kono said. “I’d want to be someone my school could trust to get them to safety if something bad happens. I’d want to be strong enough to protect the people I cared about.”

“That sounds like Lana,” Eleu said. _It also sounds like_ _Hali’a,_ Kono thought. 

The rest of the journey passed in contemplative silence. Eleu switched off his side of the connection after a little while, so Kono switched his to the video feed option. Thankfully, Lana had clipped his and Eleu’s pocket balls on her belt, lens-button facing outward. They weren’t anywhere he recognized, not that it meant much. But the overall ambiance was way different from Melemele Island.   
  


It was close to dusk. They were on a wooden bridge over a field, and even in the dimmed light, Kono could see that it was filled with brilliant red oricorio dancing around flowers of their same hue. Many had constructed leis from the flowers in the garden, and one big oricorio in the center of a large gathering had a lei woven with yellow, blue, purple, and red flowers. It was a pretty sight, but not a lasting one. At Olli’s instruction, Lana soon passed the meadow with the beautiful red flowers and strode into a clearing with a pokecenter elevated and enclosed with a guardrail. There was a cliff on the opposite side of it, and on the other, a cold-white trailer. Compared to the natural beauty of its surroundings, it looked ruthlessly utilitarian in design, almost alien. 

“Route 16,” Olli announced. “Home of the Aether Foundation’s very own Professor Ditto. But... why are the windows broken?” 

The screen pivoted to the right and bounced, like Lana was in a hurry. In the flurry of movement and shaking screens, Kono could see a pane of jagged glass along the right side of the otherwise sterile windows. There was the garish stripe of crime scene tape, and a woman with blue hair was handcuffing a couple of battered humans about Lana’s age. They had a similar hair color to the cop, except that it was all sticking straight up, and a little charred at the tips. Kono would have wondered if they were related were it not for the disinterested roughness with which she shoved them into the back of her car. 

“Rufus! Scud!” Lana cried out. “What’s going on? Officer Jenny,” she said with hurried politeness. “Why are you arresting them?”

“I’m sorry Lana,” the officer said. “There’s been another attack. These two were found loitering around the scene. You know Team Skull’s reputation -- I couldn’t just let them go.” 

“Woah woah!” said one of the blue-haired teens (Rufus, maybe), “we didn’t do nothin’! It was that mad fool and his eelektross!”

“Yeah, yeah!” said probably-Scud. “We tried to stop them. Honest!”

“Then why were you staking the place out?” the officer asked them icily. 

“That’s cuz, uh...” said Rufus, “my bro here knows what we were doing, right, homie?”

“Yo, yo. We were waiting for nightfall, yo,” said Scud, “so we could, um, _not_ steal from the Aether Foundation?”

“It’s not them,” Lana said. “Trust me. They’re thieves, sure, but not _murderers_.”

“I’m sorry,” Officer Jenny said. “But I can’t just let them go. Not even for you.” 

“You have to clear our names, cuz!” Scud said. “ _Ow_. Watch the hair!” 

“We were framed!” Rufus said. “For real this time!” 

The door slammed shut, silencing their pleas for amnesty. “What about Deedee?” Lana asked. “Are they okay?”

“Doctor Ditto is expected to make a full recovery in due time,” Officer Jenny said. “But until they’re able to answer who attacked them, we can’t take any chances.” She gave Lana an apologetic shrug before sliding into her vehicle and down Route 16’s dirt road. 

A stunned silence followed the scene. Somewhere between numbness and anger, Kono felt a burning need to be out of the pokeball, to be able to do something, anything. ‘ _A trainer with an eelektross...’‘The news might upset him...’ ‘There’s been another attack...’_

“Let me out!” Kono said. “You _knew_ about this! That trainer’s been at it again.”

“I knew,” Lana said, walking them down a cliffside ramp, past a road sign that read Route 15. They were at another beach, strangely devoid of surfboards and laughter. A group of uniformed men and women probed the evening tide with flashlights. They opened their mouths as soon as they saw Lana, but, having apparently recognized her, thought better to say anything. 

Lana let Kono out of his pokeball with a quiet _splick_! of water. “What do you want to know?” she asked him heavily. Eleu came out of his pokeball too, looking guilty. 

“I knew too,” he said. “We didn’t want you worried about it,” he said. “You were just beginning your training, and we didn’t want to mess that up for you.”

“I had a right to know!” Kono said. All this time he had been training... if the trainer had gone this long without being caught... was there even a home to go back to? “What else have you been hiding from me?” 

“Nothing,” Lana promised. “Not about your school, at least. They’re safe, as far as anyone knows.”

“We have to find them,” Kono said. “The trainer. And the eelektross. I can’t let them do this to anyone else.” _To us._

“Let the Tapu handle your vengeance,” Lana said. “It’s not our way to seek revenge, you know that.”

“It’s not vengeance,” Kono said. “I just want to live in peace. I can’t just leave that to the Tapu. I just can’t. Big words, coming from a wishiwashi, I know, but -- but if you won’t help me beat them, I’m going to swim back and warn my school. Even if I’m not strong enough to win my way back, they have to know the danger is still out there.” 

“Those _are_ big words,” Lana said. “I’m proud of you. You’re a big fish in a little body, you know that, cousin? It’s one thing to depend on the strength of others, but to put yourself out there for the good of your family -- that shows real strength of character. Of course I’ll help you.”

“And me!” Eleu said. 

“For what it’s worth, I’ll tag along,” Olli droned from the inside of Lana’s bag. 

Kono had never before felt such camaraderie with someone not from his own species. Words failed to capture his gratitude, so he nodded, hoping the motion would suffice to express it. 

It was settled. Kono and his new school would defend the old one. “And I know just where to start,” Lana said.

0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0

Po Town was a civilization like no other. If anything, it defined itself by defying civilizedness at every corner. Having let herself through its barricaded entrance, Lana was soon flanked by two lanky women with pink hair and matching skull tees. They stood a half-head above Lana, but regarded the younger girl with respect. 

When asked to find a container for Kono to swim in, the Team Skull women did so without much resistance, which is how Kono came to see the world through the eyes of a grimy aquarium. The aquarium had been at his behest, as life spent inside his pokeball gave life a muted quality he wanted to avoid, as he planned to re-enter the wild ocean soon. He hadn’t expected it to come with roommates (three ornery beta fish), but at least this time he had a ceiling. 

Busted down car windows, spray-painted profanity, and half-empty cans of Lanakila Lite (‘Unleash the Champion in you!’) decorated the twilit streets of Po Town. Team Skull “grunts,” as Kono was told they were affectionately called (among other things) by one of their two accepted authority figures, loitered about, kicking cans and spitting gum. Many of them made a scene of themselves by showing off their muscles or by performing an intimidating pose.

But Lana wasn’t worried, so Kono wasn’t either. When a grunt approached Lana, Eleu fizzled into existence beside her and growled menacingly. It was an odd juxtaposition for a popplio’s natural cuteness, but Eleu was fiercely protective, and grunts got the message pretty quick. They walked past row after row of dilapidated buildings and comparatively well-kept hedges (Kono suspected they had simply just been left alone), until the presence of a woman with long pink and yellow hair stopped them. 

“What do you want, Lana?” the woman said. 

“Can’t a girl visit old friends?” Lana said. “I just wanna chat, Plumeria, that’s all.” 

Plumeria rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky the boss is out. Guzma told me not to let you in after what happened last time.”

“They started it,” Lana said. “And look, I didn’t bring Colleen with me. It’s just us three.”

“And me,” Olli added unhelpfully. 

“Four,” Lana amended. “Look, we’re looking for someone. He did a number on this little guy here’s school, and we need to make sure he’s out of the picture before he can go back.”

“I know who you’re looking for,” Plumeria said, sounding bored. “We saw him on the shore a few days ago. Guzma’s out looking for him right now.”

“I don’t suppose you let the police know about that.”

“That’s not how we do things, Lana. We look after our own. If some jerk’s creeping up on Team Skull turf, then we make sure they regret it.”

“You said Guzma went after him a few _days_ ago?”

“Yeah...” Plumeria said. “I’m not happy about it. He doesn’t usually take this long. I suppose your friends can stay until the boss decides what to do with you. But you have to help me find him. What do you say? Guzma’s looking for your guy anyhow, so it’s not like you’d be going out of the way.”

“I would,” Lana said, “but I owe it to Ko here to finish his training. And someone still needs to translate for Kono.”

“Lana, girl, you’re in Po Town,” Plumeria drawled. “I’m sure at least _one_ of my little brothers and sisters would be willing to throw down with him. I’ll handle it, okay? You have my word. Just find Guzma.”

“I... guess that works,” Lana said. “Ko, you okay with that?”

“Just be careful,” Kono said. “Don’t do anything stupid. That eelektross is _strong_.”

“I will. C’mon, Eleu. Let’s go find the G-man.”

“Good luck,” Eleu told Kono before disappearing into his pokeball. Kono wanted to say, “you too,” but he had a nasty suspicion that he’d need all the luck for himself, alone in this unfamiliar place. 

And so it was agreed that he would finish training in the raucous temple of delinquency that was Po Town. A round of Team Skull grunts took turns listening to Kono until they figured out who could hear him speak. 

Kono’s new life with Team Skull reminded him of _Lucky Coin_ , an old black-and-white movie about a guy who crossed a mafia of meowth and was subsequently sent on an all-expenses-paid trip to pain town, where only his tormentors could understand a word of what he said. 

“You gotta be faster than that!” a human grunt named Maka said gleefully as a pitiless lanturn named Ikaika sent a hundred volts careening through Kono’s body.

“ _Ggghhhhaaaaaah_!” Kono said, gasping. After being placed under the delicate care of Team Skull’s grunts, they had decided to stick him in a large pool in the corner of their complex. That, he didn’t have a problem with. Being forced to dance around Ikaika’s electro ball, however, was a different story. “Give me a warning next time, will you?”

“Yo,” Ikaika said, “no self-respecting pokemon’s gonna choreograph their moves for you. You gotta feel for where I’m gonna hit next.”

“I’m _trying_ ,” Kono said through gritted teeth. He could sort of feel a tinglingness about the space Ikaika was going to hit, but by the time he sensed it, it was already too late. 

“Try harder,” Ikaika said. 

So he did. Every morning, Kono woke up, did his laps around the cemented pond that was his new home (he’d stopped counting at this point), and waited. It was often until well after noon that the grunts from Team Skull came by to besiege his tranquil pool with lightning. News of his attempts brought more and more of Team Skull to the poolside, where their initial jeers turned to shouts of encouragement. But while Kono appreciated their solidarity, none of them had anything to tell him about _how_ to avoid the electricity, or any real sense of direction to take his training at all. He wanted Lana back, but he wasn’t sure when she was coming back, or if she would at all. 

Every little complaint about living above sea level coursed through Kono’s veins like static from a lanturn’s antenna. Even _talking_ had begun to wear on Kono. The spoken word was so sluggish compared to the vivace of wishiwashi body language. When members of Team Skull voiced their concerns for him one exceptionally sultry day, he brushed them off.

If they were a wishiwashi, they’d know how he felt already. Every frustrated flick of his tail, every darted eye would have betrayed the mounting frustration that darkened his thoughts like the shadow of Mount Hokulani. It felt petty, begrudging them for something they couldn’t help, but Kono was in too foul a mood to care. “It’s nothing,” he said, and they believed him. Only Ikaika saw through his facade of even temperament.

“Why do this if you hate it so much?” Ikaika said. “It’s not like you’ll have to actually _do_ anything once you find your school again.”

“Some of us like to be productive members of society,” Kono bit back. “And it’s for a challenge... “I’m not sure if I can win it if I don’t.”

“Oh no way!” Maka said. “We know all about losing challenges.”

That wasn’t exactly what Kono wanted to hear from the people charged with training him. “Do you now?” he said dryly. 

“Yeah, yeah,” said Kamea, a blue-haired grunt with a tattered bandana. “All my homies in Team Skull took the Island Challenge until the kahunas said we weren’t good enough.”

“But didn’t you want to win?” Kono asked. Kamea’s look of utter dejection was sad enough to puncture the swell of irritation he aimed at them. He swallowed his venom and listened in earnest.

“Sure we wanted to win,” said Maka. “Everyone did. That was the problem. We were all raised with the belief that we’d be the next kahuna, but when push came to shove, not all of us were cut out for it. Most of us weren’t even really cut out to be trainers at all, honestly. But yo, we got all this heat from people when we said we wanted out, and then all the old geezers started treating us like we were failures just ‘cause we didn’t finish some stupid game they had when they were a kid.”

“For sure, yo,” Kamea said. “That’s why I joined my homies in Team Skull. I don’t feel like a failure here.”

All Kono’s life, he had believed that wishiwashi were the only species that unified to spite a world that punished them for being seen as weak. Looking at the assembled members of Team Skull, he wondered if that was really true. 

“I don’t think you’re a failure,” Kono said. “If anything, you’ve already won what I’m fighting for.” 

0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0

The night Kono outswam lightning, Lana came back. 

Over two dozen grunts surrounded Kono and Ikaika in their concrete arena. The sun had long since plunged beneath the gentle curve of the earth, and Ikaika’s antenna blazed like an electric star. Kono felt the telltale pulse of energy like a deep-sea mine about to go off. He was ready. Kono wrapped the elements about his tail and used the added momentum to shoot past the electric bubble, relishing the _pop_! of fizzled water behind him. He aimed right between Ikaika’s wide eyes and spinned. His Aqua Tail smacked the larger pokemon like a vortex. 

“Lights out for Ikaika!” roared one of the spectating grunts. “In more ways than one! Wow, it’s dark all of a sudden. Anyone got a light?”

“I do!” said Olli from somewhere in the crowd, in his signature static hum. The area was soon lit by a steady beam of light emitted from his screen. 

“That was a Magnitude Ten move if I’ve ever seen one,” Lana said. “I’m proud of you, cousin.”

“Lana!” Kono said. “You’re back! Did you find Guzma?”

“Sure did,” Lana said. “Dude’s been ‘staking out’ all the parties on the beach. Something about catching the creep in the act.”

“I told you,” said a white-haired man on Olli’s screen, “that jerk likes the attention. All his attacks have been the day of some kind of premiere. That superhero movie everyone’s talkin’ about’s gonna show at the Hano Grand Resort tomorrow. If you hurry to Hano Beach, you can get the sneak on ‘im.”

“ _Captain Kahuna IV: Return of the Tapu?_ ” Kono asked. _Great Fini, I’m turning into Hali’a._

“Er, yeah. That’s it, I think. Anyway, tell Plumeria I’m comin’ home. I’ve done more than my fair share. This ain’t Skull turf, so I ain’t sticking my neck out, especially not with so many cops sniffing around. It’s all you from here on out.” 

“I’ll be there,” Lana said. “Kono?”

“I want to be there,” Kono said. “If I know my school, they’ll be there too.” 

“Rock on,” Lana said. 

As a going-away gift, the grunts of Team Skull presented Kono with his very own hand-knitted skull tee. “This is the proudest day of my life,” sobbed Kamea. 

“You gotta win, bro,” Maka said. “Do it for all us little guys.”

As Kono made the transition from pool to pokeball, Lana told him, “You did great, training with them. They’re good guys, you know? They just don’t know it yet.”

Kono slept away the ride back to Melemele. He wanted to be fresh for his upcoming confrontation with the eelektross and (oddly even more dauntingly) with Hali’a. Would his leader demand satisfaction over Kono’s incited duel? Could he win if she did? When it was time to go, he was ready. 

Kono slipped into the cool, familiar waters of Melemele’s ocean and probed it for any sign of the foreign electric-type that had terrorized Alola’s coast for months. Tension thrummed the air like a static hum. Police officers prowled the coast as beachgoers in disguise, and Lana led the search in the ocean. 

Their perp took the bait. One of the officers in the volleyball pit was shocked by a lightning bolt so strong it curdled the ozone. A legion of battle-ready policemon burst out of their pokeballs; nurse pokemon frantically healed the wounds of the injured man. 

“This is it,” Lana said.   
  


“Party time,” said Eleu. 

Kono wished he could share their enthusiasm. When Eleu dove into the danger zone, though, he was right there with him. 

So was his school. 

“Kono!” Hali’a said from the nose of a jigsaw colossus. 

“ _I’m sorry_ ,” Kono said by way of shifting his scales demurely down. It was an act of submission. His body was an open book, a letter of apology. He didn’t want to fight. He wanted to take it back. A thousand words passed silently in the language only wishiwashi shared. 

“ _You did what you thought was best for the school,”_ Hali’a said _. “I can respect that.”_

“ _What is best now?_ ” Kono said. “ _We have friends who will help us. I truly believe that we can win this time. I know how to avoid his electricity.”_

_“Very well. You will teach us. We will learn. We will win. We are wishiwashi,”_ she said, and the school repeated it: a warcry, a celebration, a statement profound. 

Kono took his place, this time, at the nose of the school. His experience was theirs; in moments, tales of bolting past a lanturn’s electricity were passed from the head, to the body, to the tail. Strength was their illusion made manifest. It was time they used it.

Meanwhile, Eleu chased the storm. He was battered, blackened by at least one blast of thunder: bruised, but not beaten. He twirled, a vortex of unimaginable size in his wake. A deep-sea typhoon caught the eelektross by the tail and tugged. 

In the corner of Kono’s eye, he could see the eelektross’ corner making hand signs, then a movement with his feet. A light shone from his wrist, and the eelektross screamed, “BLACK HOLE ECLIPSE!” 

He had opened a back door into some pitch dimension, devoid of sound, light, or mercy. Half the reef was sucked into the orbit of that fell star, Eleu included. It was all Kono and his school could do to escape the remorseless crush of gravity.

Kono saw Eleu spit something out, and he shone like the first light of dawn. His hair elongated, his nose grew longer. He became the bubbling flood, the gaiety of the freezing gale, the savage joy of the tidal wave. 

“Sing, primarina!” the school said, reverent in the presence of the Tapu’s herald. “Sing us a song of vengeance.”

To the tune of an aria made elegy, kono and his school avenged their fallen. A thousand silver bodies cut through the wet dark and cast a long shadow over the frightful killer of pokemon.

0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0

“I thought you didn’t want to evolve?” Kono stood to the side of his great school, in somber awe of his friend’s new form.  
  


“I decided I wanted to be strong enough to protect the people I cared about,” Eleu said. 

“That sounds familiar.”

“It should,” Eleu said simply. “It also beats dying.” The slightest curve of his lips was all that was left of his contagious humor. It was like saying goodbye and hello, all at once. “The eelektross and his trainer will face trial. You have accomplished your goal, Kono. You are free to go.”

“Will I see you guys again?”

“When you realize the ocean is too small to hold you,” Eleu said, “follow the sound of my voice. We will be waiting.” 

“What about my family?” Kono said. 

It was old Hali’a who answered. “Lead, and they will follow.” 

X - X - X - X - X - X

Disclaimer: Combee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” is of course, Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive”, which I do not own. 


End file.
